Cancer Molecular Profiling Using Next-Generation Sequencing to Treat Rare Diseases with Sanjeev Redekar Apollomics TRANSCRIPT
Download PDFMay 29, 2024
Sanjeev Redkar, Co-Founder, Executive Director, and President of Apollomics, focuses on difficult-to-treat cancers, such as lung cancer, brain cancer, and leukemias, not served by immune checkpoint inhibitors. Their approach targets the thematic pathway in cancer cells responsible for their growth and proliferation. In their drug development, AI and data analysis drive precision-targeted therapies based on tumor molecular profiling. They are developing the drugs Vebreltinib and Uproleselan, which can be used as standalone treatments or in combination with other therapies to treat rare cancers.
Sanjeev explains, "There's a pathway that is very important for the growth of cancer cells. This is proliferation, motility, migration, and invasion of cancer cells, and that's the thematic pathway. This is an important receptor, which is upstream in cell signaling of these cancer cells. This is when these pathways work well, these cells grow as normal homeostasis, normal growth of cells. When this pathway is disrupted in cancer cells, they tend to grow far more than what normal cells would. That's the pathway that we are going after. These are mutations in this pathway, in the genome amplification, gene amplification, and fusions, which lead for these particular cancers to grow well. If you are able to inhibit that pathway, then you are able to impart benefit to the patient. And that's what one of our main drugs, Vebreltinib, is going after."
"As a whole, in lung cancer, even though the checkpoint inhibitors have moved the needle in terms of five-year survival rates, the needle has been moved from about 25% to about 30%, 32%, which is still much lower than say breast cancer, prostate cancer, where the five-year survival rates are close to 80%, 90%. So, how we can win the battle against lung cancer and brain cancer is really using precision-targeted therapies. These slivers of cancers that have a particular mutation, that have a particular dysregulation, and having treatments for that allow these patients a targeted approach for a longer benefit as opposed to one treatment for the entire lung cancer population. That is why we go after the so-called slivers, which put them into the rare cancers bucket."
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